As a boy in Mali, Balla Kouyaté remembers playing the balafon to motivate workers on a farm. He was so small, he had to stand on a large rock to be seen by the crowd. An opportunity like that would ...

First new artist release through Chrysalis Global, an imprint of Chrysalis Records Produced by an A-list team: Dudu Sarr, Lucy Durán + Pape Armand Boye “Three outstanding Malian and Guinean griots….

For Balla Kouyaté, the balafon has always been more than just an instrument. A West African antecedent of the xylophone, it’s been in his family for 800 years, dating back so far that history blends ...